


The Morning After

by Scrawlers



Series: Paradigm Shift [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (newly) Established Relationship Keitor, Alternate Reality, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 19:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14087682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrawlers/pseuds/Scrawlers
Summary: Acxa is not a morning person, but that does not stop Keith from ambushing her first thing the morning after his world is flipped around.





	The Morning After

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a direct sequel to, and takes place (as the title might imply) the morning after, the other fic in this series, "Revolutionary." I highly recommend reading that one before you read this one, because although some things are explained, the reality these two fics take place in is quite different from the one we know in canon, and "Revolutionary" explains things a bit better than this one. But that said, I'll leave the decision of whether to do so or not up to you. It's your call, my friends.

Sandpaper, in Acxa’s opinion, was smooth and silky soft in comparison to the first couple vargas after waking each morning.

It never mattered how much or how little sleep she got. It never felt like enough. Each morning it felt less like she  _opened_ her eyes and more like she peeled them apart, and despite the fact that her bedroom didn’t have a window (and that they rarely left the castleship in stasis near a sun even if it had), the light seeping in through the cracks around the door was always enough to make her eyes sting. Her bed always felt softest in the morning; her blankets were warm and her pillow was plush, and if she turned her pillow over it provided a comforting coolness against her cheek. Her room was far enough away from the dining room, bridge, and training halls that she usually didn’t hear any of the typical morning bustle upon first waking, but even if she couldn’t hear it, she knew it was there, and knowing was enough. Knowing made her bury her face even more deeply in her pillow in an effort to stave off the headache that came from imagining Ezor’s chipper morning chatter, or the newer members of Auxiliary Team Three hovering around, dancing on tiptoes as though dying to ask her if she would be training them today (something they would know if they would spend two damn dobashes to look at the training schedule like halfway competent individuals) despite being too nervous to breathe a word about it.

But as rough as mornings were, they were impossible to avoid. Unlike the newer members of Auxiliary Team Three, Acxa knew what her responsibilities were without being told. She knew she had a duty, not only to her team (and trainees), but to the universe. And she knew, too, that there were ways to make mornings a little more bearable—to make her want to shove her newest trainees into Training Level Five as retribution for their antsy, bright-eyed hovering a little less. So despite how comforting the cocoon of blankets she awoke in each morning was, she pushed against her deep-seated reluctance to rise and manhandled it into grim determination instead. Mornings were the uncontested worst vargas of the day, but she had faced (and survived) worse battles than these, even if those worse battles had happened far less often and less recently.

The first thing, Acxa had found, that made her feel halfway like a person after waking was an early morning shower. But the second, and arguably more important, thing that made her feel halfway like a person was a hot cup of hiko, a beverage created from beans that were harvested from the planet Liindoryx. Hiko was revitalizing; it was brewed in such a way that the natural properties of the beans shot energy into whoever drank it like an engine that had been jumpstarted. It was, unfortunately, also pretty bitter; there were ways to sweeten it, but when Ezor had made a comment after they first acquired some about how sweetening it was only an attempt to hide how gross hiko was (and how those who  _did_ drink it straight had to be demons from the netherworld), Acxa had drained an entire cup while staring her down just to prove a point. Ezor had avoided her for three quintants after that, and Acxa, her pride on the line, had never used sweetener since. She was used to the bitter taste by now, anyway; even if she wanted to use sweetener (and Keith had told her that he wouldn’t say anything if she did), she didn’t think she could now.

But whether it was bitter or not, hiko did the trick. It finished the job an early morning shower started and made Acxa feel like the person she had to be to get through the day, and everyone in the castle knew it. She had never told them, of course, at least not in so many words; but she thought there was a reason her newer trainees  _hovered_ instead of trying to talk to her first thing in the morning, as well as a reason why Ezor chose to chatter at Narti or Zethrid over breakfast rather than Acxa. Everyone knew that Acxa was not available for discussion until she had finished at least  _one_ cup of hiko. It wasn’t so much an unspoken rule as it was an unspoken law. Everyone— _everyone_ —knew it.

Which was why Acxa didn’t understand why Keith jumped up from his seat at the table and bounded over to stand in her way the moment she entered the dining room.

“Hey,” he said, and before Acxa could answer, added, “Got a tick?”

“No,” Acxa said flatly, and tried to walk around him. He blocked her path again; she scowled.

“Come on,” he said, as he put a hand on her shoulder. Without really thinking about it, she shrugged it off. “It’ll only take a dobosh.”

“I thought you said you wanted a tick,” Acxa said.

Her temper didn’t faze him; he rolled his eyes. “Fine, a tick, whatever. Here.” He held up a mug of hiko she hadn’t noticed him holding before, and pushed it lightly toward her. “Will this help?”

Part of Acxa—the surly, irritated,  _morning_ part of Acxa—wanted to stay stubborn and say no. But Keith had a peace offering (a  _necessary_ peace offering), and that aside, he was Keith. Although he of all people should know better than to try to talk to her just after she woke up, he was also . . . well,  _Keith_. She could make an exception for him.

So she sighed and took the proffered mug, and after she took a ( _blessed, hot, bitter, delicious_ ) sip, she said, “Okay. What.”

Just because he was Keith and she would make an exception for him didn’t mean she had to be polite about it.

“Not here,” Keith said, and despite early morning static that still covered her brain in half-asleep fuzz, she didn’t miss the way he glanced back at the table. There weren’t many others in the dining room; the Auxiliary Team Three members that typically hovered instead of figuring out their schedules for their own damn selves were there, huddled in a little cluster at the far end of the table, and Ezor and Zethrid (both of whom Acxa assumed had been having a conversation) were there as well, now watching with interest. Keith nodded toward the door she had just entered through. “Follow me.”

“Why?” Acxa said, and the look Keith gave her was nothing short of  _I have the sudden urge to shake you._ All things considered, and despite the fact that she was self-aware enough to know that she was being difficult for the sake of being difficult, Acxa felt he brought this on himself. “What can’t you tell me here?”

Both Zethrid and Ezor leaned forward on the table, not even bothering to hide that they were eavesdropping. The members of Auxiliary Team Three at least had the decency to pretend to be interested in their breakfast pastries.

“Just—!” Keith tossed his hands up, yet then once again grabbed her shoulder, but only briefly enough to give her a little nudge toward the door. Acxa gave him a  _look_. “Come  _on_.”

Acxa huffed a sigh she knew he would take as an acquiescence and headed toward the door. The moment she did, Ezor burst out with, “Aww, no fair!” while Zethrid chorused, “ _Laaame_!” Acxa and Keith ignored the pair of them, though Keith made it a point to shut the door behind them.

The hallway, Acxa thought, afforded them enough privacy. Even if Ezor and Zethrid pressed their ears against the door (something she wouldn’t put past Ezor at the least), neither would be able to hear through it. But short of stopping outside the door, Keith led the way down the hall, walking at a brisk pace that (now that she was a little more awake) Acxa thought looked a bit antsy. She frowned, and took another sip from her mug as she followed him. She couldn’t remember anything from the previous day that should have made him so desperate to talk to her in private aside from the encounter with the alternate reality Paladins. That  _had_ upset him, something which had been clear enough after Auxiliary Team One had led the alternate reality Paladins down to their cells and the rest of them had set out to examine the alternate reality Lions, but after Acxa and the others had returned from the Lion examination, Keith had seemed relaxed. Whatever he had discussed with Lotor while the rest of them were gone had cheered him up. At the least, Keith hadn’t said anything to her after their battle against Zarkon’s fleet, and while they had all been exhausted, she thought that if he was still bothered by the alternate reality Paladins, he would have brought it up then. It wasn’t like him to wait until the next day. (And, she thought, with another little  _ping_ of annoyance, if he could wait all the way until the next day to talk to her about it, she really didn’t see why he couldn’t wait until  _after_ her morning hiko.)

But whatever it was that was troubling him, Acxa figured she was about to find out. Though Keith clearly wanted to put distance between them and any who might eavesdrop, the distance evidently didn’t have to be very great. He led the way to the end of the hall and opened the door to one of the lesser used drawing rooms (one that, Acxa thought, was likely meant for guests to wait in before supper, and was so small all it had were two loveseats and a table), and once they were both inside and he had shut and locked the door behind them, Keith turned to her and said:

“I kissed Lotor.”

Acxa blinked. She stared at him. And when he continued to stare back at her, his eyes intense and betraying no hint of a jape, she said, “What?”

“I kissed Lotor,” Keith repeated. “A lot. Last night, and also a little this morning.”

Still there was no hint of a jest in Keith’s expression or tone, and Acxa looked down at her mug of hiko. She hadn’t had a chance to drink even half of it. She was not awake enough to process this. But Keith was practically vibrating out of his own skin, and she at least now understood why he was so adamant about talking to her (though again, she wanted to grouse, he could and should have  _waited_  just a  _little longer_ ), and so she sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, willing herself to wake up.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s—come over here.”

She grabbed his arm and lightly tugged him over the loveseat, and when they were both seated (Keith bouncing his leg on the floor), she turned to him and said, “Start from the beginning. What happened?”

“He came by my room last night, after everyone went to bed,” Keith said. Acxa nodded to indicate that he should continue as she took another sip from her mug. “He wanted to lecture me about going after Zarkon by myself.”

“Good,” Acxa said, and Keith scowled at her. “There was no reason for you to do that. Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”

“No. I thought Zarkon might invite me in for drinks,” Keith said sarcastically. “I did what I had to do to stop Zarkon from getting his hands on a Black Lion.”

“You could have been killed.”

“This is war. I could be killed every day.”

“It doesn’t mean you have to try to make it happen.”

“I wasn’t—!” Keith tossed his hands up again, and loosed a sharp sigh. “Whatever, that’s not the point. The point is, Lotor came by last night to lecture me about going up against Zarkon, so I don’t need to hear about it again from you.”

“Fine,” Acxa said coolly, but only because she wasn’t in the mood to waste time (and knowing Keith’s self-sacrificial streak, it  _would_ be time wasted) arguing about it. “So Lotor stopped by to give you a well-deserved lecture about the reckless stunt you pulled in yesterday’s battle. What happened after?”

Keith gave her a caustic look at her slight against him, but chose to ignore it in favor of continuing. “I told him that if he was going to lecture me, he could get out.”

Acxa couldn’t help it; she snorted a laugh that almost made her choke on her drink. Whatever ire Keith was still feeling about her slight against him seemed to fade; his lips twitched into an almost-smile as he continued.

“He said that he didn’t want to lecture me—”

“He should have,” Acxa said.

“—but that he wanted to make sure that I knew that he meant what he said before, in the lounge,” Keith continued, a little more loudly to speak over her.

Acxa raised her eyebrows. “What did he say in the lounge?”

Despite his eagerness to relay this story to her, and despite how he had—without much prompting—told her enough to get them to this point, Keith opened his mouth to respond for only a tick before he snapped it shut again, his cheeks tinting pink.

“That’s, uh—” He rubbed the back of his neck as he looked away. “That’s not important. To the story. It’s not relevant.”

Acxa gave him what she was sure was a look flat enough to match her tone. “Lotor said something which bridged the gap between you being angry with him for lecturing you and you kissing him, but it’s not relevant.”

“No, it’s not,” Keith said, and he returned her flat stare in kind.

Acxa rolled her eyes. “Fine. Continue. What happened after Lotor reminded you of what he said in the lounge?”

“I told him that it wasn’t really true, or—accurate, or whatever,” Keith said. The flush had left his cheeks a little when he’d insisted that whatever Lotor had said wasn’t relevant, but it returned now, and once again he turned his eyes on the floor. “He said that it was—that I wasn’t understanding what he meant by that. And then I, uh . . .”

“You kissed him?”

Keith nodded. He wasn’t looking at her, but he was smiling a little even as he bit his lower lip to try to hide it. “Yeah.”

Acxa waited a tick before she asked, “Did he kiss you back?”

Keith looked back at her, quick enough to suggest her question startled him, and said, “Yeah, he—I couldn’t have kept kissing him if he didn’t.”

Acxa considered for a moment before she nodded her head to the side to concede the point. “Fair enough. So what you’re telling me is that you made out with Lotor last night.”

Acxa took a drink to hide the grin she couldn’t bite back as Keith blushed hard. “I—y-yeah, I guess, if you want to put it that way—”

“I want to put it that way if that’s what happened, and it is,” Acxa said. Keith made a face at her, but if anything, that only made her smile grow. She was going to get  _so_ much mileage out of this. “So what’s the situation? Are you his consort now?”

Enough surprise washed over Keith’s face to give Acxa a sinking feeling of exasperation before he even opened his mouth. “I—I don’t know. We didn’t talk about it.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t talk about it?”

“I—we didn’t talk about it,” Keith repeated, and Acxa resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose again. “We kissed, a lot, and went to bed—”

Acxa’s eyes widened. “You slept together?”

Keith blinked. “Yeah?”

Acxa massaged her forehead with the fingers of one hand before she asked, “Why didn’t you lead with that?” Before he could answer, she added, “Were you safe?”

Keith scrunched his brow in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean?” Acxa asked, and as Keith continued to stare at her, uncomprehending, she closed her eyes. “Keith. You can’t tell me that you’re this ignorant about safe se—”

“Wait, no, stop,” Keith said loudly, and he waved his hands in front of him before he signaled a Time Out gesture. “That’s not—we didn’t—not like  _that_. We didn’t sleep together like  _that_. We just— _slept_. Actual  _sleeping_. We went to sleep, in bed,  _together_ , but like— _next to_ each other. Not—anything else. All we did was sleep.  _Actually_ sleep.”

Acxa breathed a sigh of relief. “All right.”

“And kiss,” Keith added.

Once again, Acxa couldn’t resist laughing a little. He was so . . .  _Keith_ that she couldn’t help it. “Yes, I heard,” she said. “But what about this morning? I know that you kissed him again—”

“Actually,  _he_  kissed  _me_  this morning.”

“—but you should have had time to talk about it,” Acxa said, ignoring him. “He spent the night in your room. You had time to talk before breakfast.”

“I know, but we . . . didn’t,” Keith said. He was bouncing his leg again, tapping his fingers in a rapid beat against his knee. “I don’t think we really need to. We know where we stand. We don’t have to attach a label to it.”

“It might make things easier. It can’t hurt to be clear about it,” Acxa said.

Keith shrugged. “It was clear enough last night. I  . . . know how he feels about me.”

Keith’s voice had started off strong enough. He had shrugged, as if to dismiss her point, and his counter sounded as firm as anything he ever said did. But as he spoke, he trailed off; his voice took on a softer, hushed quality, and there was no mistaking it for uncertainty or trepidation. Instead, his breathy tone spoke of nothing but  _awe_. His eyes were alight with the wonder in his voice, the look in them distant as he briefly blocked out the present to think back to something else. He was smiling, soft and warm, and even if Acxa had held onto any vestiges of her early morning irritation, those last tendrils melted now in the face of his clear happiness.

“Well, it’s about time,” she said, and she put her arm around his shoulders in a brief hug. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Keith said, but then he blinked, and looked over at her with a frown. “What do you mean, ‘it’s about time?’”

Acxa rolled her eyes. “It’s been six decaphoebs.”

“No it—!”

“Ezor made plans to lock the two of you in a storage closet to speed it up. Zethrid volunteered to help. I barely got them to back down, and I only managed because Zethrid realized it was more fun to tease the pair of you instead.”

Keith looked scandalized, and the way his mouth was open for a second suggested he didn’t know what part he wanted to argue against first. Finally, he said, “It hasn’t been six decaphoebs. That’s an exaggeration.”

“No, it isn’t,” Acxa said. “We met him six decaphoebs ago, or just about. We can pull up a calendar to track them if you would like.”

Keith rolled his eyes, and waved a dismissive hand. “No, I know that. I meant that I haven’t  _been in love_  with him for six decaphoebs.”

“But you’re in love with him now?”

Keith’s eyes widened, and for a moment he looked as though he’d been caught in an Empire floodlight. But then he swallowed, ducked his head, and said quietly, “Isn’t it obvious?”

Acxa nodded, smiling. “Yes. It has been for decaphoebs now.” As Keith made a face at her, she patted his shoulder and added, “But if it helps, it’s been equally as obvious that he feels the same way.”

Once again Keith bit his bottom lip in a bashful smile, and looked away briefly before he glanced back at her.

“Really?” he asked after a moment.

Acxa nodded. “To everyone but the two of you, apparently.” 

Keith huffed a little laugh, but otherwise fell silent. Acxa finished drinking the rest of her hiko (it was lukewarm by now, but the subject of their conversation had woken her up enough to make for it), and as she drained the mug and set it on the table, Keith cleared his throat and said, “But hey—listen. I don’t know if Lotor wants this getting out yet. We didn’t talk about it, so I don’t know if he wants to make it public or not. So do me a favor and keep it between us for now.”

Acxa frowned. “Fine, but why did you tell me if you weren’t sure he’d be fine with others knowing?”

Keith gave her an exasperated look. “Seriously?”

That was enough. That one word—the implication behind it, really, what she understood as soon as she saw the  _look_  he gave her—was enough. It was her turn to duck her head, smiling to herself.

“Besides,” Keith added, and he leaned over to bump his shoulder against hers, “I know you’d tell me first thing too, right?”

Acxa’s smile didn’t fade as she bumped his shoulder back. “Yes, I would.”

Keith grinned, satisfied. “So, see? . . . But seriously,” he added, his smile fading, “Just keep it between the two of us for now. Lotor might be okay with it, but—just in case.”

Acxa waved him off as she stood up. “Yes, I heard you the first time.” She stretched her arms above her head before she cracked her back. She hadn’t been sitting for very long, but now that her mind as more alert, she wanted to work the stiffness from her muscles. “But we’ve been talking for long enough. I had better go get ready.”

“For what?” Keith asked. Acxa gave him a cursory glance before she picked her mug up from the table and headed to the door.

“For my duel with Lotor.”

“What?” Keith followed after, and Acxa was glad she had stood up before him. He couldn’t see her smirk this way. “What duel?”

“The customary engagement duel,” Acxa said, and she forced her grin down just long enough to risk a glance back at the perplexed stare he was giving her. “You know about the tradition, don’t you? When two are set to be wed, each one duels one of their intended’s parents. Since you don’t have parents, I’m volunteering to duel Lotor in their stead.”

“What the—I—no one said anything about marriage!” Keith sputtered, and he lowered his voice to a hiss as the door opened and they stepped out into the hallway. “It hasn’t even been a full  _day_ —”

“It’s been six decaphoebs,” Acxa said. “It’s about time you settled down.”

“It—!” Keith’s voice cut out in a little growl of frustration, and Acxa bit down  _hard_ on the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing.

Oh yes. She was  _definitely_ going to get  _so much_ mileage out of this.

 


End file.
